Method and two-phase spray cooling apparatus
AssigneeMainstream Engineering Corporation
InventorsGregory S. Cole, Robert P. Scaringe
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A compact, lightweight, and efficient evaporative spray cooling system is provided for removing high heat fluxes from surfaces of devices such as micro-electronic chips, metal, mirrors, and lasers. The system uses expanding metastable two-phase flow and a method of controlling the spray for optimum heat flux removal. Control includes spray atomization, fluid-phase, mass flow, and spray temperature.
Claims24
A spray cooling apparatus, comprising a device configured to produce a saturated two-phase spray from a fluid so as to generate nucleation prior to impingement on a surface to be cooled.
A method for spray cooling a thing generating large quantities of heat, comprising;
- measuring a pressure difference between a manifold pressure and a chamber pressure, passing cooling fluid through an expansion valve, and at least one nozzle located in a manifold, controlling the expansion valve to maintain the pressure difference at a level which ensures atomization of the fluid as it exits from the at least one nozzle, and maintaining the atomized fluid exiting the at least one nozzle as a two-phase liquid-vapor mixture to provide boiling nucleation prior to contact of the spray with the thing to be cooled.
A spray cooling system for an electronics array, comprising a multi-chip module having a plurality of electronic chips, and a device configured to produce a saturated two-phase metastable spray from a cooling fluid so as to contain nucleation prior to impingement on surfaces of the chips.
A cooling system, comprising a surface to be cooled, and means for producing a saturated two-phase cooling spray from a fluid so as to attain nucleation in the spray prior to impingement on the surface to be cooled.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.